the top ten best hit songs of 2011 (VIDEO)

And here we are - great list to put together, really happy y'all seemed to enjoy watching it, and it's the last of the retro lists finished for the 2010s!

Next up, I've got an episode of Resonators coming so stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2011

You know, I've said a number of times that my favourite lists to make are the top ten hits of any respective year, mostly because I have peculiar taste when it comes to my favourites and any chance to compliment songs people have actually heard... well, it's a nice boost. And once this is done - and with the exception of 2019 - I will have created these top tens for every year in the 2010s, and given that seemingly everyone is doing a retrospective, it does feel nice to place everything back in context.

But really, if you're examining 2011 in any way, shape, or form, it's a year that defies easy contextualization. Generally a really good year - although I still give a slight edge to the best of 2012 and 2015 - but not one that seemed to fit with any specific trends or sounds. If anything, it felt more like a year dominated by personalities, from the dueling pop divas to the rise of Adele's thunderous 21, an album that seemingly defied all expectations with its success. Yeah, rock was kind of non-existent on the Hot 100 - and you could argue hip-hop was kind of a mixed bag sliding through transition from the club boom - but between pop, soul, R&B, and a surprisingly bright year for country, there was a lot to like about 2011. More importantly, it was a year where the great songs were consistently great, where I didn't even have much difficulty filling out a solid - albeit surprising - list of Honourable Mentions. As always, the songs had to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end list in 2011 to qualify, so let's get things started with...

the top ten worst hit songs of 2011 (VIDEO)

Can't believe I nearly forgot to post this mess... enjoy!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2011

So something every music critic loves to do is craft a 'narrative' surrounding the sound of a specific year, especially with the benefit of hindsight allowing one to track trends or make predictions of what was to come, write a little history along the way.

2011 is not one of those years where that comes easily. On the surface you could make the argument this is where the club boom hit over-saturation and began collapsing in upon itself, with the success stories this year telling what was to come. But while this year would foretell the success of some individual acts and trends - you can argue the popular seeds of bro-country were planted this year, as was Adele's decade-long run and a fondness for retro tones that would eventually be co-opted by artists looking for identity outside their own - hi, Bruno Mars, who got his major push this year - it also feels weirdly ossified in time. For one, 2011 was a year of massive pop diva competition, where most would see their careers fly in wildly different directions by the decade's end or implode entirely. You could argue that 2011 was also the year of Young Money as Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj began notching consistent crossover success... and many could argue that was a mixed blessing at best. And that's not even counting the string of acts that would achieve chart success in 2011 and little else - and what's bizarre is that they weren't part of any one consistent trend or level of quality, which means even in hindsight you can't really draw clear predictions on where anyone was going to go. And here's the strangest thing: for the most part that diversity played to the year's strengths, and wound up just having less bad hits than many years ahead - years like 2013 and 2017 might have hit greater heights, but they also had far deeper lows. Like with 2012, most of the bad stuff in 2011 was more annoying and badly made than offensive, but unlike that year it was a struggle for me to even pin down the worst of what we got... but I did pull something together anyway. You all know the rules, the songs had to debut on this year-end Hot 100 chart, so let's untangle the worst of this messy year, starting with...

the top ten worst hit songs of 2010 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a long time coming, but I'm happy this came out as loose and funny as it is. 

Next up... well, I put up a vote on Twitter and folks apparently wanted me to cover something else instead of AURORA and Silversun Pickups... so I've got a surprise in store. Stay tuned!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2010

...what, you thought these retrospective lists would only cover the best of the year? 

Yeah, eventually we were going to have to get here, and we might as well start with the first year in the 2010s left uncovered. But first, a quick recap of the chart trends of 2010, a year knee-deep in the club boom, somewhat evenly between the songs that believed the party would never end and those who were desperately pretending it wasn't happening at all. And what was telling was how both sides of that binary wound up on the best and worst lists, which you'd think would balance everything out. And yet that's where you'd be wrong, because the bad songs seemed to grossly outweigh the good in 2010 in hitting the lucrative balance between offensive, obnoxious, or just plain asinine. More to the point, it was also a year where flimsy production that's aged rather badly was everywhere on the Hot 100, and sometimes a song sounding like ass is all you need here.

Now granted, 2010 is one of those years where the factor of, 'Oh, this sucked, but nobody cares anymore so why revisit it', and that tends to be a hidden truth about the Hot 100 - bad trends age badly, but the songs are so disposable that nobody really cares all that much, which tends to paint the years as better than they might be. And while this is true for some forgotten crap, there'll also be hits on this list that somehow remain massive to this day, either because the artists are still celebrities - and probably shouldn't be - or the radio has entrenched them as staples because nobody with brain cells came in the day they decided on syndication. And again, the songs had to debut on the Hot 100 in 2010 - it's widely considered a pretty rough year for the charts, all the more tainted by the fact I personally spent way too much time in the club in 2010, so let's go back to the gungy afterparty rightly forgotten, and the morning hangover that somehow has not gone away, starting with...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 9, 2019 (VIDEO)

And here we go - not nearly as many copyright complaints as I expected to battle through, but it's alright.

Next up... let's finally get to Marianas Trench, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 9, 2019

The only way to describe this week is a mess - and not an especially good one either. And some of this I could predict - I knew Gunna, Lil Pump and Offset would hit the charts with some force, but they honestly didn't seem to register the larger impact I was expecting, and we got a flood of other singles that hit the charts as well from other genres - whether any of it will last is an open question, we'll have to see.

the top ten best hit songs of 2009 (VIDEO)

Yeah, about time I got this done - enjoy!

the top ten best hit songs of 2009

So I'll admit to being surprised that this, of all things, is the next top ten people want me to cover. You'd think folks would want me to finish off the 2010s proper before going back to 2009, but there you have it.

But I get it, because while I'd struggle to call it the best of the 2000s, 2009 was a pretty glorious year. Not only did it showcase the birth of YouTube chart criticism, but it was such a potent year to cover! 2009 is widely accepted by most as the birth of the club boom, where the kinetic, rock-tinged pop of the mid-2000s picked up more layers of glitter and went to party hard, picking up a grabbag of whatever hip-hop had survived the ringtone era, whatever rock that was willing to party, and basically lock the placid country scene out of the clubhouse entirely. More to the point, it was impossible to not see 2009 as a year of reckless abandon: the economy had crashed, most of my generation was broke, and if we we didn't have money, we were going to party as if we did - it might have seemed bleak, but I think a lot of us were riding the contact high that came from a new president and a desperate desire to believe in hope... even if that contact high would lead to incoherent silliness and a hangover we'd only halfheartedly regret. But I'll say this: even if I've slowed down a little bit, it's hard not to miss the manic fun of this year, especially when there were so many great hits, so let's get things started with...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 15, 2018 (VIDEO)

And here we go - man, I look exhausted filming this, but thank god I got some sleep coming through.

Next up... ugh, this'll be frustrating to handle, so just stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 15, 2018

...you know, I'd call it funny if I was anyone else. See, I predicted last week that Meek Mill would have have something of an album bomb - he's had two already just in the course of me covering the charts, and I expected given the hype there'd be another one here, especially given some of his critical acclaim... but the Spotify numbers didn't seem that huge and it's not like he'd get sales or much radio. So imagine my extreme exasperation when not only did we get fourteen new Meek Mill songs, we also got a mini album bomb from Lil Baby - an artist I thought we could leave behind, preferably by the side of an abandoned road - and a sizable set of new arrivals, bringing our round total up to twenty-seven new songs for this week. All right before the holidays while I still work fulltime in the middle of trying to wrap up multiple year-end lists with a tighter schedule than any other year prior because of real life constraints. So yeah, screw it, album bomb rules are in effect, albeit revised from their original outing from Tha Carter V given that I'm not reviewing Meek Mill's new album formally - as if there'll be much to say - but with the suggestion taken from you all that the only songs I cover are his breakthroughs in the top 40 and any that would wind up as the Best/Worst of the week. That still comfortably gives me over a dozen new entries, and if anyone wants to complain about that, especially given Meek Mill is under Atlantic which is under Warner and that means this video will likely wind up copyright claimed and I won't get a dime from it, you go produce 200+ episodes of a twenty minute weekly series with a day's turnaround time on your own for over four years, and then get back to me. 

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 13, 2018 (VIDEO)

Okay, I think I'm pleased with how I landed things here with regards to album bombs going forward, and the episode turned alright along the way. Enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - october 13, 2018

Well, I was half right with this. I knew there'd be some form of album bomb with Lil Wayne - the sales and streaming numbers made it practically undeniable - but what I didn't expect that it kept Logic from charting anything with the entire album dominating the Hot 100 with a full twenty-two debuts from that album alone. And since I already reviewed the album... well, you'll see in a bit, but suffice to say that considering album bombs are now the norm in the streaming era and have been throughout 2018, I'm going to be putting in some new rules on how to properly handle them in a way that's reasonable to the health of this show, so stay tuned for that.

video review: 'tha carter v' by lil wayne

Took a long-ass time to get here... and honestly, I have no idea whether this'll be enough to satisfy folks, but enjoy?

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and we'll see where the chips fall on upcoming records, so stay tuned!

album review: 'tha carter v' by lil wayne

I don't think anyone can deny at this point that the hype behind this album has long ago eclipsed any impact it could ever make. 

And when I say that, I'm referring to artistic impact in the same way Lil Wayne drove a decade ago, because the sales and streaming numbers mean in terms of popular impact, it looks like Lil Wayne still has it. But I think even Lil Wayne fans grasp this, because I know even a fair few of them considered the possibility of this release like a pipe dream, the sort of project that remains shelved or unreleased to become the stuff of what might have been, especially when it came to Lil Wayne's stifled career over the past five years. But beyond the possibility, the largely unasked question - namely, whether Tha Carter V should be released at all - is a much dicier one. Folks forget that while his commercial clout was undeniable, Lil Wayne hadn't exactly been on a hot streak of quality in the 2010s. Between album concepts that felt unrealized or at the very least uneven and Lil Wayne struggling as both an MC and songwriter across mixtapes, albums, and even guest appearances, despite his undeniable influence his star had fallen hard and far. And with Tha Carter V developed in that environment, I don't even think it would be reasonable to expect a return to the glory days of Tha Carter II or III. At best I expected another overlong, messy project that could nail a few more hits than misses that would get better than expected reviews thanks to a relieved fanbase... and thus with my expectations safely lowered, did Tha Carter V deliver?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 23, 2018 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a pretty decent week. Not quite one of my better episodes, to be honest, but alright enough...

But now onto the true controversy, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 23, 2018

So I'll be honest: if there's a week that feels like a bit of a breather for me, it's this one. Yes, we got an album bomb from Kanye and Kid Cudi, but thanks to it actually being pretty good and not having an avalanche of other new arrivals, this week actually feels a little more restrained for once, and before Scorpion crashes in a few weeks, I'll take what I can get.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 16, 2017 (VIDEO)

Lighter week, for sure, but I wouldn't really say a better one, to be honest.

Thankfully, next up is both lighter and better, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 16, 2017

So this is a point we typically hit around this time of the year: the charts start to slow down for the holiday season, we get a few extraneous songs from The Voice - just one thus far - and a sense that barring a major disruption, we're going to have some stability. Granted, said stability could be disrupted by that Eminem record dropping in just over a week, but that'll remain to be seen.